Time to grow up

Willow Row, Stonehaven It’s nice to see the First Minister inoculating virtues of dignified respectful tolerance in the next generation of Scotland’s young people by stating that she would “dingy” US President Donald Trump if she was a private citizen (which she isn’t. Her words will always carry more weight, even when she retires) and that she wouldn’t “hold back from telling him where I disagreed with him”.

Perhaps she could have suggested that she would have quietly tolerated his views and that just because she didn’t agree, that didn’t mean that he was necessarily wrong.

Each nation has its own unique set of issues, some of which her own party has been trying to tackle fruitlessly in Scotland for over a decade, to no avail, and certain policies are a response to these issues.

However, this more nuanced and balanced approach doesn’t fit in with her previous record of turning up to protests wherever possible and jumping on to short term societal and cultural bandwagons as they roll on by in the hope of further increasing her popularity among social justice warriors, staunch nationalists, left-wing students and retired teachers who went to university in the 1960s who increasingly view any opinion or politician that isn’t leftleaning enough for them as a grave threat.

The ordinary people of Scotland probably feel that, much like President Trump, they are the ones being “dingyed” at the moment with this sort of short-term pandering behaviour.

Hamilton Street Girvan, South Ayrshire